Last night 19 GoodGymers ran 1.5k to clear up the garden on the Holly Bush Estate

GoodGym Tower Hamlet's old friends at Holly Bush estate needed help! They're applying to become part of the Royal Horticultural Society and desperately needed a tidy up in order to make the best impression. We met at the Town Hall Hotel as usual (this time in a room that had secret doors...!) at 18.45. After a briefing we celebrated Louise Hartley's 50th good deed.

Tower Hamlets are absolutely killing the distance in the January challenge - we've collectively run 2472 km this month! Our target is 3100... we can do this! On the Good Deed front we are a little behind schedule - 81 out of a target of 174. Personally, I think sharing the goodness 81 times in 23 days is pretty amazing anyhow!

It was fantastic to see some new faces last night - show Izzy, Usaid and Fiona some support!

Sally Squat Challenge

After some breath work we headed outside to warm up with hops, skips and frog jumps. Squats were mentioned during the briefing and a couple of people looked a little nervous... So, you need two things - 'Flower' by Moby and space to squat. The main lyrics are 'bring Sally up' and 'bring Sally down'. Guessed the rules yet? Squat down on 'bring Sally down' and come up on 'bring Sally up'. It's harder than it sounds! Give it a go at home and let me know how it goes.

Margaret at HollyBush was delighted to see us again

On well-warmed muscles we went just round the corner to the Rocky Garden at HollyBush Estate. Margaret was delighted to see us and we spent a good 35 minutes getting to work on the garden. We cleared several beds of weeds for her and did a cracking job of clearing up leaves ready for composting. Great work team!

After thanking Margaret and of course taking an obligatory selfie, Bryon guided us round the corner to a green where we did some speed play work - finding our 'easy', 'medium' and 'hard' pace.

An excellent start to the week Tower Hamlets, I hope to see you at our starter session on Wednesday and of course at the same time on Monday next week!

Last night 16 GoodGymers ran 8k in Tower Hamlets to clear up Christmas Trees.

A big shout out to Jake and Salome who joined us for the first time last night, may it be the beginning of many a good deed to come!

Some exciting news - Hassan Noshib is an absolute dream and has just achieved 250 good deeds! Give him a cheer, he ruddy well deserves it. Getting very close to 50 good deeds in Tower Hamlets we have Alejandro Simon and Louise Hartley - they're both within touching distance!

After a briefing and a head count we set off to Tower Hamlets Cemetery Park to get stuck in to finding Christmas trees. Friends of Tower Hamlets Cemetery Park make use of people's old Christmas trees to create dead hedges that delineate outdoor classrooms. The trees are also an amazing habitat for all kinds of creatures so we're making doubley good use of the boroughs poor abandoned Christmas trees.

On arrival at our tree-collecting point we split into four teams and set off with 25 minutes to get as many trees as possible. Tower Hamlets Council collect trees that are left out so it was no easy task! We gathered, sweaty and excited, to find out the scores on the doors:

*Tree-cycling - A walloping 6 trees *Tree-kers - 5 trees * Trees are fir life not just fir Christmas - 3 trees plus a dubious looking Santa * Pine Power - 1 (VERY LARGE) tree

Pine Power received extra points for the best quote of the night from passing policemen as they carried away a tree:

Is this something we should be worried about?

A grand total of 15 trees were collected which Dan at FOTHCP will be extremely grateful for.

A tree-mendous evening!

A solid clan showed up last night, quite early in the year, so I foresaw a much smaller turnout, a very pleasant surprise to hit 17. After catching up in the Aquatics Centre, we went out and squared up to Storm Eleanor. Her desire for destruction seemingly had all but petered out. Good start.

We welcomed Scott and Sandra to GoodGym yesterday plus Dave to GoodGym Newham. Hoping your first session was enjoyable, in that uniquely masochistic way. Most sessions aren't as intense, honest! After we discussed some of your excellent recent running performances. Siobhan and Victoria waving the GGN flag proudly with PB's, they were first and second at separate parkruns. Jenny, Hilary and Graham out representing too. Tim and Brad whipping around a Folkestone Parkrun. The GG x Parkrun fusion is healthy and alive. Let's keep this up, Hackney Marshes this weekend, with i'm sure a great big breakfast to finish.

Due to Headteacher, Paul, being ill last night, we couldn't do our painting job at the primary school. Our substitute task wasn't all that obvious(!), providing 'natural surveillance' on a very useful active commute route, The Greenway. We've been asked by the council to increase our footfall here, in order to make it a friendlier place. As a one off, this won't achieve much really, but we'll aim to incorporate many more runs here. Through this regularity and our trend setting capacity we will hopefully make it a more frequented path.

A slight stench of sewage in the air and an ornate Victorian Sewage plant in the backdrop - this was to be our training spot! Next time we'll shuffle down away farther from the whiff. An excellently tackled speed session, with everyone hitting the target. Faster on the second set, making full use of that double recovery. Classy pacing.

That wasn't our lot just yet, we went back to the Olympic Park for some team core work and 8 vs 8 relay race. With Scott sealing the victory for team 2, oblivious to James' shortcut as he made use of the parks many paths. Sneaky little..... All in good fun. An excellent way to kick off the year I reckon, as always cheers for your efforts.

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Until next week guys